Cadillac has abandoned its all-electric-by-2030 plan and is redesigning the gasoline XT5, XT6 and CT5. The replacements arrive between 2027 and 2028. Until then, dealers are short on the crossovers luxury buyers want most, and sales are already down sharply.
Cadillac is rebuilding its gasoline lineup after spending five years preparing to leave it. The timing has created a problem for the brand’s U.S. dealers: the redesigned models are still a year or more away, and several of the gas vehicles they replace are already gone.
The brand’s U.S. sales fell 22 percent in the first half of 2026, to 66,923 vehicles, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center, as reported by Automotive News on Sept. 10. That decline was three times the drop for luxury brands overall.
“It’s the midsize crossover market that’s going to be the challenge,” Ed Williamson, CEO of Williamson Auto Group, which operates a Cadillac dealership in Miami, told Automotive News. “I think [GM CEO Mary Barra] did a disservice to the Cadillac dealers in not figuring out a way to reload XT5 and XT6 sooner.”
From “all-electric” to “luxury of choice”
Cadillac’s electric pledge dates to 2021. Rory Harvey, then the brand’s global vice president, said Cadillac would be an EV brand by the end of the decade and would no longer sell internal combustion vehicles by 2030. His predecessor, Steve Carlisle, had described the shift in 2019 as the end of the gasoline era for the brand.
The first retreat came in May 2024. John Roth, who led the brand at the time, told reporters that electric and gasoline Cadillacs would coexist for a number of years beyond 2030 and framed the change as giving buyers a choice of powertrains.
The product plan did not change as quickly as the messaging. GM ended XT4 production at its Fairfax, Kan., plant in January 2025 to retool the factory for the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt. The three-row XT6 was discontinued after the 2025 model year, with the electric Vistiq positioned as its successor. In October 2025, a letter from Roth to dealers confirmed that the CT4 and the current CT5 would be retired after the 2026 model year. CT4 production ended June 25, 2026, at GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant in Michigan, with no direct replacement.
The reversal became official on July 21, 2026. On GM’s second-quarter earnings call, Barra said Cadillac would begin launching a new generation of gasoline vehicles next spring, continuing into 2028. The lineup includes redesigned versions of the CT5 sedan and XT5 crossover and a revived three-row XT6. GM said the new models would be sold alongside Cadillac’s electric crossovers and the Escalade.
Kristian Aquilina, who became vice president of global Cadillac on Jan. 1 after leading GM Canada, succeeded Roth when Roth moved to run GM’s China operations.
“Cadillac is building a portfolio that gives customers choice in the powertrain that best fits their lives,” Aquilina said in a statement to Automotive News. “As the current leader in U.S. luxury EV sales, we will continue to deliver leading EVs while updating our ICE portfolio to the same high standards of design, technology, engineering and performance that define every Cadillac. This includes the next-generation XT5, XT6 and CT5, beginning with XT5 in 2027.”
What changed
Federal policy and consumer demand both moved away from the assumptions behind the all-EV plan.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, ended the federal clean-vehicle tax credit of up to $7,500 for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025. The credit had originally been scheduled to run through 2032.
GM has recorded $10.9 billion in EV-related charges since the second half of 2025, of which $7.2 billion will have a cash impact. The company said it had paid $4.5 billion of that total through the end of the second quarter and had substantially completed the material charges tied to its EV pullback.
The rest of GM’s business has absorbed those charges. Second-quarter revenue was about $48 billion, and adjusted earnings before interest and taxes rose roughly 30 percent to $3.9 billion. GM raised its full-year adjusted EBIT forecast to $14 billion to $16 billion, citing pickup and SUV demand, stable pricing, lower warranty costs and smaller EV losses. GM remains the No. 2 EV seller in the U.S., behind Tesla.
The sales picture
Cadillac’s electric lineup has attracted new customers. GM said in May that Cadillac had passed 100,000 cumulative U.S. EV sales and that about three-quarters of buyers of the Lyriq, Optiq, Vistiq and Escalade IQ were new to the brand, many coming from Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Lexus.
The electric models have not replaced the volume of the gasoline vehicles they were meant to succeed. Reported figures show the gap:
- XT6 vs. Vistiq: The XT6 sold about 20,000 units in its last full year. The Vistiq sold 7,879 in 2025, according to Auto123.
- XT5 vs. Lyriq: In the first half of 2026, the aging gasoline XT5 sold 11,107 units, compared with 7,578 for the Lyriq.
- Lost volume: The XT4 and XT6 together accounted for about 40,000 annual U.S. sales, according to Automotive News.
Cadillac’s second-quarter U.S. sales fell about 19 percent, to roughly 36,000 vehicles. Electric models made up about 34 percent of the brand’s volume in the quarter. Results by model:
| Model | Q2 2026 U.S. sales | Change vs. Q2 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Escalade (gas) | 10,999 | -5.9% |
| XT5 | 5,764 | -9.6% |
| CT5 | 4,311 | Up (percentage not reported in sources) |
| Optiq | 4,236 | +31.4% |
| Lyriq | 4,208 | -16.1% |
| Vistiq | 2,001 | +14.7% |
| Escalade IQ / IQL | 1,771 | -2.2% |
| CT4 | 1,564 | +9.4% |
| XT6 | 888 | -81.7% |
| XT4 | 83 | -97.9% |
Sources: GM Authority, Carscoops.
The CT5 outsold all four of Cadillac’s electric crossovers in the quarter. Cadillac said its V-Series performance line had its best quarter and best first half on record. The gasoline Escalade remains the brand’s top seller, but its sales are also declining.
The gap in the lineup
“Cadillac has had great success with their electric vehicles, but they still have clientele that will expect to have a gas-powered vehicle well into the 2030s,” Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, told Automotive News. “Finding a way to get there is the tough part, and because of the way Cadillac’s lineup is set up, there’s going to be this space in gas-powered sedans and some crossovers where they don’t have a vehicle in production to fill that space.”
For now, the XT5 is Cadillac’s only gasoline crossover below the Escalade. A shopper who wants a compact or three-row Cadillac crossover must buy an electric model or look at another brand.
“Those aren’t insignificant holes, either,” Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis at AutoPacific, told Automotive News. “Compact, midsize and three-row crossovers are at the heart of the luxury market.”
Waatti named a specific competitor. “While it works through these portfolio gaps, brands like Genesis are standing there with strong products in the exact segments Cadillac has temporarily vacated,” he said. “The risk isn’t just losing a sale today. It’s losing a customer who may not automatically come back once Cadillac’s lineup is whole again.”
Genesis continues to grow. Hyundai’s luxury brand reported a record 39,088 U.S. sales in the first half of 2026, up 5 percent, and 21 consecutive months of year-over-year gains through June, driven by its SUVs. Cadillac still sells more vehicles, but the two brands are moving in opposite directions.
Hybrids are part of that picture. Hyundai Motor Group has credited record hybrid demand for its U.S. gains, and analysts cited by Korea Daily linked rising gasoline prices to growing hybrid interest. GM has not announced powertrains for the new Cadillac gasoline models. Reports indicate a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid derived from Cadillac models sold overseas are under consideration for the next XT6.
The product timeline
Here is what has been confirmed or reported for each model.
XT5. Aquilina’s statement puts the redesigned XT5 in 2027. GM Authority, as summarized by Auto123 in June, reported that North America will not get a 2027 model-year XT5. According to that report, the fully redesigned second-generation model is a 2028 model-year vehicle, with production starting in the third quarter of 2027 on an updated version of GM’s C1 platform. The same report said GM’s Spring Hill, Tenn., plant will pause production for about nine months as part of a reported $275 million retooling. The plant will also build the Chevrolet Blazer, Lyriq, Lyriq-V and Vistiq. The new XT5 is expected to borrow heavily from the second-generation model already sold in China, which offers a plug-in hybrid.
XT6. The three-row model returns after the XT5 launch and is expected to be a 2028 model. GM Authority reported that it will use a reworked version of the previous model’s platform, which lets Cadillac bring it to market faster and at lower cost. Production is expected at Spring Hill.
CT5. The next-generation sedan will be built at Lansing Grand River, where GM shelved an earlier plan to convert the plant for EV production. GM Authority has reported that the plant’s future products, including the next CT5, will use an updated rear-wheel-drive Alpha architecture. Automotive News previously reported the new CT5 could arrive by 2028. Reports also indicate the CT5-V Blackwing will return for a second generation.
XT4 and CT4. No successors have been announced.
Inventory as a bridge
Dealers and analysts say inventory will be the main tool for getting through the gap.
“You’re going to have to produce more than you anticipate and have a larger inventory to bridge that gap,” Fiorani said, adding that Cadillac will need to build up its stock of gasoline vehicles through the end of the year.
Williamson said he has urged Cadillac leadership to build as many XT5s as possible. “I don’t mind paying the carrying costs to stay in the ICE business,” he said.
How much room Cadillac has to do that is unclear. GM told Spring Hill employees in 2025 that current XT5 production would continue through the end of 2026. Combined with the reported nine-month retooling and a production start for the new model in the third quarter of 2027, any XT5 units built before the changeover would need to last dealers for most of 2027. GM has not publicly said how many first-generation XT5s it will build before production ends.
Pricing and the EV side of the business
Dealers are not giving up on electric models. Their concern is price.
“I love our EVs,” Howard Drake, dealer principal at Casa Automotive in Sherman Oaks, Calif., said in an email to Automotive News. “So do our customers. We just need to make sure they are priced to market.”
The Escalade IQ and IQL sell in roughly the $130,000 to $150,000 range. Without the federal credit, electric models now compete with gasoline alternatives on price alone.
The long view
Waatti said the transition will be difficult for many dealers but called the new direction a “healthier strategy” that could pay off over time.
“Cadillac built some of the right EVs, but made the wrong assumption about how quickly its customers would stop wanting everything else,” he said. “The mistake was treating EV and ICE too much like a handoff rather than parallel businesses.”
Other luxury brands have made similar moves. Mercedes-Benz dropped its 2030 hard deadline for going all-electric, and BMW has said it plans to keep selling gasoline vehicles into the next decade. Cadillac’s version comes with a scheduling problem: the brand discontinued its gasoline models before it announced their replacements.
What to watch
- Third-quarter sales (early October): Cadillac will compare against a strong third quarter of 2025, when buyers rushed to purchase EVs before the tax credit expired.
- XT5 build volume: Whether GM increases first-generation XT5 production before Spring Hill shuts down for retooling.
- Powertrain announcements: Whether the new XT5, XT6 and CT5 include hybrid or plug-in hybrid options for the U.S.
- EV pricing and incentives: Whether Cadillac adjusts pricing on the Lyriq, Vistiq and Escalade IQ, as dealers have requested.
- Conquest losses: Whether Genesis, Lexus and other brands gain market share in the compact and three-row segments while Cadillac is absent.
Sources
- Automotive News, “As Cadillac pivots from all-EV strategy, dealers brace for bumpy transition,” John Irwin, Sept. 10, 2026 (source material provided). All direct quotes from Williamson, Fiorani, Waatti, Drake and Aquilina come from this article.
- CNBC, GM second-quarter 2026 earnings coverage, July 21, 2026
- Electrek, “Chevy and Cadillac scale back EV plans as GM shifts to gas,” July 21, 2026
- CBT News, “Cadillac shifts from all-EV future, new ICE models coming in 2027,” July 22, 2026
- GM Authority, Cadillac and GM Q2 2026 U.S. sales reports, July–August 2026
- Carscoops, Cadillac Q2 2026 sales, July 2, 2026; CT4 production end, April 10, 2026
- GoodCarBadCar, Cadillac Lyriq sales figures, Aug. 10, 2026
- Auto123, XT5 production pause (June 30, 2026); XT6 revival (June 25 and July 22, 2026); CT4/CT5 (Oct. 17, 2025)
- GM Authority, CT4 production end, June 25, 2026; next-gen XT5 confirmation, Aug. 5, 2025
- AutoGuide, CT4/CT5 and Lansing Grand River investment, Oct. 17, 2025
- GM News, Cadillac surpasses 100,000 U.S. EV sales, May 7, 2026
- GM News, leadership changes, Nov. 11, 2025
- InsideEVs, KBB and The Drive, Cadillac 2030 goal coverage, May 2024
- CarPro and Korea Daily, mid-year 2026 U.S. sales results, July 2026
- Consumer Reports and IRS-related guides, federal EV tax credit expiration